


Tomatoes and Cinnamon

by SapphoIsBurning



Series: Hummus Club vs. the Universe [1]
Category: NXT, Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Cooking, First Dates, Fluff, Food, M/M, Punk Rock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/pseuds/SapphoIsBurning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sami invites Finn over for dinner, but can't quite figure out if it's a date or not until Finn shows up at his door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomatoes and Cinnamon

**Author's Note:**

> Contains graphic description of cooking and food. HMU if anyone wants my actual lubia recipe, though everybody makes this stuff a little bit different. (It also gets transliterated into English differently so some people spell it lubieh, etc. Sometimes it's called fazoolia. YMMV.)

Sami shopped. He weighed out two pounds of green beans for the lubia, then made it three, then four, just to be sure, then dumped some back. Wrestlers ate a lot, and it reheated well. Did he have anything to put his leftover green bean stew away in? Hmm. He took the pencil from behind his ear and added “Gladware” to the bottom of his list.

He got two onions. He got a head of garlic, then put it back and got a jar of peeled garlic, then put the jar back and got the head of garlic. He was never good at being in charge of the shopping, but he was on his own in Florida and he would have to help himself. He missed the little market he went to when he was younger. You could buy koussas, halva, labaneh, meat pies, and sheets of dried apricot paste better than any fruit roll-up. You could get meat ground for kibbee for the holidays. Cardamom coffee. Syrian cheese. Lebanese pastries. Anything.

He came back to himself in the Publix. He didn’t want anyone to stare. He hunched down over his cart and pushed it out of the produce aisle. He got two big cans of crushed tomatoes, and he picked through the spices. Nothing exactly like what he wanted, but he got allspice and cumin. Good enough. He had the rest at home.

What about the rice? He thought about it and sighed guiltily. Syrian rice was a lot of work.

The meat counter had all kinds of fish but the only lamb they carried was frozen. He stood back, trying not to make eye contact with the person working at the counter so they wouldn’t talk to him. “Should I talk to them?” he thought. He was getting better at talking to strangers.

But not today. He grabbed two pounds of stew meat from the refrigerated counter and walked away quickly.

What else do you need to have someone over for dinner? he wondered to himself. The question of whether or not it was a date lingered, just beneath his consciousness. He did it on an impulse, invited Finn over for dinner. They were working out next to each other and talking about home and missing their families and it just slipped out.

Finn blushed and said “Yes, what can I bring?”

“Dessert?” Sami squeaked out.

“What do you like?” Finn had asked.

Then Sami had frozen. He liked everything, he had a huge sweet tooth that he couldn’t really afford to indulge as much as he wanted.

“Chocolate? Or...not chocolate?” Sami said, trying to breathe. “I like everything. I mean, the stuff I really like nobody around here makes, it’s like weird Syrian stuff...” He chuckled awkwardly.

“I’ll find something.” Finn gave him a grin, finished wiping down his machine, and headed off to the showers.

So Sami found himself planning a menu. He wasn’t sure how much food to make for two people. Back home if you were cooking for people you were cooking for...seven? Twelve? You prepared for anyone and everyone to show up. This was more...intimate. He had cooked for Kevin, once. That was a long time ago.

He knew Finn didn’t drink, so he got a couple of cokes in glass bottles, because whether or not this was a date, it was at least a little fancy.

Did he need anything else? The hummus they sold in this part of the country was...possibly edible. He didn’t have time to make his own unless he used canned chickpeas. They worked okay but not as well as soaking and cooking the dried ones. He threw some into the cart. He grabbed some okay-looking pita too, doubling back to get it.

He got home, finally, sweating. He went overboard. He always went overboard, he thought, sorting out his haul. He cranked up some music while he worked, The Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime blaring over the tinny speakers he attached to his ipod in the kitchen of his apartment. He dug out his apron, left over from the last kitchen job he had to take to support his wrestling.

He washed the green beans, snapped off the ends, then left them in the colander in the sink while he prepped the other ingredients. He peeled and sliced the onions into crescents, and finely sliced a few cloves of garlic, two, then three, then four for good measure. He got down the bottle of olive oil from his cupboard and poured a pool into the bottom of the stew pot, cranking up the heat. When it was ready, he browned the meat, then added the garlic and onions to fry with the meat. Why use two pans? He scraped the bottom to get the caramelized bits off.

He opened and added the crushed tomatoes and a little water, stirring the mixture as it heated up to a boil. Then he gently slid the green beans in. He stirred in salt, allspice, a little cumin, and cinnamon. As the mixture bubbled, he put the lid on, lowering the heat and setting the timer for two hours. By now he felt sweat beading on his back and the music had him pumped. He danced back and forth, aimlessly, thinking better of making his own hummus. He danced while he filled and started the rice cooker. He danced through the apartment, skanking to the bathroom and stripping off his sweaty clothes. All anyone did in Florida was sweat and maybe wrestle once in awhile.

He stopped dancing on the tile, careful not to slip. He showered, lost in thought. He never asked if Finn had ever had Arabic food before. Did they have much of it in Ireland? Would he be impressed Sami cooked? What if he was disappointed. Was there enough food?

As he turned the squeaky handle to stop the shower, he realized he left his music playing in the kitchen, on a loop.

D. Boon would make his own hummus. Sami was no D. Boon.

Did he have to dress up? He dried off and looked through the clothes he had clean, settling on his favorite OR-7 shirt. If Finn had never heard of the band, he couldn’t not like them, right? He flopped on his bed for a while after he was dressed, trying not to freak out. The stew had to cook for a lot longer. He needed to stay calm and not weird out the person coming over to hang out with him. Just him.

Finally, he came downstairs and cleaned hastily, washing the dishes from the last few nights of takeout. He took out the trash. He turned the air up. He put his apron back on. He stirred the lubia, just for good measure.

He got to work on the hummus, pureeing the chickpeas with kind of a lot of olive oil, salt, some tahini from a jar in the fridge (but not too much), lemon juice, cumin, garlic, and the secret ingredient, a little bit of creamy peanut butter.

“What if Finn is allergic to peanuts? He would have said so, right? What if I kill him on our first date? What if it’s not a date?” The whirring of the food processor obscured the buzzing of his intercom. He flew over to the door not even setting down what he was holding and buzzed Finn in. Well, he hoped it was Finn. Maybe it was an axe murderer.

He stood at the door for a few beats before someone knocked. He threw it open.

Finn was standing there in his leather jacket with his motorcycle helmet under one arm, carrying a white bakery box tied with a red string. He looked...Sami gulped. He looked nice. He was wearing a black button down shirt, the one he wore to do interviews.

And he was staring back at Sami, who was barefoot in a black t-shirt with a wolf on it and an apron splattered with tomato sauce.

Sami shook himself out of his daze. “Hi! Come in! Um, the food’s not done. I’m sorry this place is a mess,” he said at the same time Finn said, “Hey love, something smells amazing in here.”

They both caught themselves and blushed. Finn came inside.

“I rode around town today looking for some of that stuff you were talking about,” Finn said, setting his jacket and helmet down on a chair. He handed Sami the box.

“What stuff?” Sami asked as he untied the bow in the twine. But that question was answered as he opened the lid. Baklava, shredded phyllo haystacks, even the little round pastries covered in pistachios that no one could agree on the name of. Sami’s eyes went wide. “Where did you get these?”

“Little place in Winter Park. I looked around, you know…” Finn was suddenly bashful.

“This is a date,” Sami said, blinking.

“Is this not a date?” Finn asked, looking alarmed. “I am so sorry—”

“No!” Sami cut him off. “Please let this be a date. Sit down. Fucksticks, I am a terrible host. Do you want a Coke?”

At that, Finn laughed. He took the box away from Sami, putting it on the table, and pulled the man gently into his arms. He pressed his forehead to Sami’s. “You’re beautiful. You cooked me dinner. This is already the best date I’ve had in years.” He smiled.

“Technically I’m still cooking you dinner. It’s not done,” Sami said, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Then I have time to do this,” Finn said. He put a hand behind Sami’s neck and pulled him gently down into a kiss.

Sami put his hands around Finn’s waist and shivered all over. He kicked the door shut behind them.

The food got eaten, eventually.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Now I've gone and made myself homesick. And hungry.
> 
> Update: [dahdeemohn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dahdeemohn) drew some amazing art for this story! [You can see it on tumblr here!](http://dahdeemohn.tumblr.com/post/142875944590/whoops-aha-i-accidentally-made-a-brush-and-ink) This is the first time anybody's illustrated one of my stories and I have to say, it feels good.


End file.
